It had several times frustrated Catilina's candidature for the consulship, and that it would attempt the like against Caesar was sufficiently certain.

But, even though Caesar should perhaps be chosen in spite of it, his election alone did not suffice.
He needed at least some years of undisturbed working out of Italy, in order to gain a firm military position; and the nobility assuredly would leave no means untried to thwart his plans during this time of preparation.

The idea naturally occurred, whether the aristocracy might not be again successfully isolated as in 683-684, and an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might not be established between the democrats with their ally Crassus on the one side and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other.
For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide.
His weight hitherto in the state rested on the fact, that he was the only party-leader who at the same time disposed of legions-- which, though now dissolved, were still in a certain sense at his disposal.

The plan of the democracy was directed to the very object of depriving him of this preponderance, and of placing by his side in their own chief a military rival.
Never could he consent to this, and least of all personally help to a post of supreme command a man like Caesar, who already as a mere political agitator had given him trouble enough and had just furnished the most brilliant proofs also of military capacity in Spain.

But on the other hand, in consequence of the cavilling opposition of the senate and the indifference of the multitude to Pompeius and Pompeius' wishes, his position, particularly with reference to his old soldiers, had become so painful and so humiliating, that people might well expect from his character to gain him for such a coalition at the price of releasing him from that disagreeable situation.